Layer 10: Of Cottages and Kings

Dama’s carriage dropped from the sky and screeched to a landing just in front of her cottage, kicking up a cloud of mixed regular and fairy dust. Not waiting for Kyle to descend from his seat to open the door for her, Dama shoved it open and flew out, and without setting her feet on the ground soared to the cottage door, threw it open and buzzed through.

Nobody was in the waiting area except Jerome, sitting behind his desk. He was so startled that he nearly fell over as he leapt to his feet, his chair overturning and clattering to the floor behind him. “Fairy Godmother!” he said nervously. “There is—”

“Not now, Jerome,” Dama snapped as she flew across the room, alighted before the reception room door, tossed it open and stormed through. She strode down the hallway and into her office and slammed the door shut behind her.

Dama approached one of her bookshelves, tossing her wand onto a plush couch as she did so. She noted the one-foot diameter crystal ball sitting upon its small stand on the top shelf, just where she’d left it. She flitted up, grabbed it, blew dust off of it (had it really been that long since she’d used it?), and then descended again to land just behind her desk. She sat the ball on its stand in the middle of the desktop and took her seat. She closed her eyes and breathed several deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. Then she opened her eyes and concentrated on the opaque ball. She reached out and placed her hands on either side of the orb as the opaqueness yielded and clouds started swirling within it, and its cool smooth surface began to warm and throb slightly. “Show me inside the tower chamber of Princess Fiona,” she said in a low, mystical tone. The swirling of the clouds within the ball became more agitated, and then coalesced into a scene showing the interior of Fiona’s tower-prison. She was in ogress form, it being nighttime, sitting on her bed and knitting something, struggling to work by the flickering torchlight.

“Aha!” Dama said. “I knew that little rodent was lying!” Now that she could prove that Rumpelstiltskin was a liar, she could call a press conference for the next day – when the sun was up and the princess was in her proper human form, of course – and theatrically reveal that the new ‘king’ was a fraud. And then…well, there were a few possibilities, all of which brought a grin to Dama’s face.

As Dama mulled the possibilities over, she continued watching Fiona. What was she knitting, anyway? It was hard to tell; it didn’t look like any kind of covering or garment – except maybe a belt; it did look somewhat rope-like. Could she actually be trying to knit a rope that she could use to climb out, to escape? The thought that Fiona might be trying to escape on her own unsettled Dama. But no, there wasn’t enough material in the room for the princess to be able to knit a rope of sufficient length and strength to descent the high tower exterior.

Whatever it was, the princess’s face had a look of determination as she struggled at manipulating the knitting needles with her pudgy ogress fingers. Dama chuckled. It had been quite a while since she had tuned in to Fiona’s room; but it was always a boring show, almost as bad in its way as Real Scullery Wenches of Worcestershire County, as the princess went through her incredibly dull daily routines. But then, ogres tended to be dull, private, predictable creatures, frustratingly happy to live out their own simple, disgusting lives in the swamps and bogs they seemed to love for some ungodly reason and be left alone…although quick to anger if crossed. Plus they were obstinate – such as Fiona was demonstrating now with her diligence at…whatever it was she was knitting. Dama shook her head. The poor, sad creature. How disappointed Fiona would be to find out her truly ‘proper’ form really was so much closer to this great green glob, had been since the day she was cursed, and had just been reinforced by the lonely years where she had had to subconsciously draw on her ogrid tolerance for isolation and obstinacy of purpose. In fact, Dama wondered how much – if anything – remained of the human Fiona beyond the beautiful shell that she occupied during the day. Of course, it would be that shell, that form, that she would assume full time once Charming kissed her, and the shell – the image – was the important thing. Fiona had been conditioned since childhood to be obsessed and fixated with becoming ‘Mrs. Fiona Charming’, the bride of a bold and handsome rescuer, and if that wasn’t True Love, what was? Once wed, Fiona might eventually notice that her inner feelings and desires were a bit odd and out of place for life as a queen in a castle, but that really didn’t matter. Her destiny was to marry Charming and eventually sire offspring, preferably male. Who cared about her feelings? She would be a queen sitting in the lap of luxury; she’d just have to learn to shove her private deviances into a closet and deal with it.

At times Dama almost felt sorry for Fiona. But then she reminded herself, as she had had to occasionally remind Harold, that Fiona wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for her. And how many other scores of women would literally kill to be in Fiona’s eventual place as a pampered queen, let alone only have to give up a few years of their life in relatively benign solitude? If Fiona still felt antsy after marrying Charming – well, they would have to find some sort of charity work or harmless humanitarian causes to fill her time; it would keep Fiona occupied and the publicity would reflect well on the monarchs as a couple. Dama just wished that Harold and Lillian – mostly Lillian – hadn’t insisted on leaving so many books of consequence in the tower for Fiona to read. The fairy stories and manuals on decorum were fine – they even reinforced what was expected of her – but some of the other books were too likely to give Fiona ideas beyond her appropriate role in life. An educated woman, with eyes opened to possibilities beyond what society’s rules and strictures for women ordained and the will to pursue them, could be a dangerous thing. Dama, a self-educated and ambitious woman, knew that all too well. But Dama had developed a certain fondness for the pitiable princess over the years, watching her like a pet goldfish in a bowl, and hoped that she could allow Fiona to live out her life, even after her usefulness to Charming had ended, in quiet, docile peace – as long as she kept her place. Dama would hate to have to deal with a restive Fiona in another, more unpleasant way. But what had to be done, had to be done. Fortunately, whenever Dama had tuned in to Fiona’s room before, she had usually found the princess reading her fairy tales or playing with her dolls or telling them stories about how she looked forward to her rescue and living happily ever after – all signs that her mind was staying in the right place.

Still…what was it that the princess was now knitting? And why was she so intense? This was new…and still disconcerting. Dama leaned closer to the crystal ball, trying to figure out—

“Excuse me, Fairy Godmother,” Jerome’s tentative voice sounded from the doorway. Dama, startled, looked up to see that the elf had opened the door far enough to peek his head and upper body through.

“What is it, Jerome?” Dama demanded. “I’m rather busy right now.”

“Yes, Fairy Godmother. I’m sorry, Fairy Godmother,” Jerome stammered. “But…there is someone to see you.”

Dama’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t see anyone in the waiting room,” she said, then more accusingly, “and I thought I had told you cancel the rest of the appointments for the day when I left.”

“You did, Fairy Godmother. And I did, Fairy Godmother. But this is not a client. It is…an inspector.”

“An inspector?” Dama repeated. This was a surprise. A most unwelcome surprise.

“Yes, Fairy Godmother.”

Dama sighed. “Very well,” she said irritably. “Send him in.”

“It’s actually a ‘she’, Fairy Godmother. And she actually wants you to go to her, Fairy Godmother.”

Dama let go of the ball and slapped the palms of both hands down atop her desk. “What?!” she fumed as the image of Fiona’s room faded away.

Jerome shrank away even more, until he was nearly out of the room entirely. “She would like to see you, Fairy Godmother. She’s waiting in the potion room.”

“You let her onto the shop floor…and into the potion room?!” Dama said, her face turning dark pink.

“I’m sorry, Fairy Godmother. I had no choice, Fairy God—”

“Just stop,” Dama said, thrusting out her hand dismissively. She took a moment to collect herself, and sighed. “Let’s just get this over with.” She grabbed her wand from the couch and again took to the air. As she passed Jerome in the doorway she paused and looked down at the cowed little elf, who seemed to wither under her glare. “We’ll more talk about this later,” she said, and without waiting for a reaction, flew down the hall and over the railing of the banister overlooking the factory shop floor.

The first thing that Dama noticed was that the diminutive minion laborers in their white hazmat suits were just milling around the floor in apparent confusion. Next, she saw to her great irritation that the assembly line had stopped moving, and valuable time-sensitive formulas were sitting in flasks in various stages of completion along its length. “You idiots!” she thundered, hovering high above their heads. They lookup up at her like natives at some terrible, angry god, and they cowered in fright. “What is the meaning of this?!”

They all turned and pointed at the doorway with closed double-doors that was carved out of the trunk of the great tree that had been incorporated into the stone masonry of the far wall of the room. Above the door was bolted a sign in decorative luminous pink lettering that read, ‘Potion Room’. Dama narrowed her eyes. “Get back to work!” she growled, and without waiting to see if her command was answered, flew like a large, angry bumblebee down toward the potion room doors. She alighted just short of the doorway, pulled open one of the double doors, and strode in. The spring-loaded door automatically swung closed behind her.

The interior of the room, which was hewn from the interior of a great hollow tree, was cylindrical, about thirty feet in diameter, and lined up to a height of some forty feet with shelves upon which sat a great variety of potions in all manner and shapes of glass containers. Most of the shelving was open, but there was one section of the shelves about twenty feet up that was enclosed in a locked glass container, with a sign beneath that read ‘Restricted Access’. That is, it was normally locked. Right now it stood propped open, and one of the bottles of potion was missing from it. It was no mystery where it had gone; at the opposite end of the room stood a dark-clad witch, with tall crooked witch’s hat perched above a head where shoulder-length greasy brunet hair framed a greenish gray tinted, hook-nosed face pock-marked with blemishes. Her broom, which Dama assumed provided the means of her reaching the restricted shelf, rested against the shelving beside her. The witch didn’t immediately notice Dama, for her attention was riveted upon reading the label on the flat-bottomed Florence flask of luminous light blue fluid she held in one hand. Dama immediately recognized it as the ‘Happily Ever After’ potion from the restricted shelf; a potion which simultaneously provided ‘beauty divine’ to its drinker and his or her True Love – a potion that was difficult to make, whose ingredients were rare, and which was very expensive. Tucked under her other arm the witch held a clipboard from which dangled a frayed bootlace, at the end of which was tied a raven’s feather quill.

Dama felt a flare of anger. She wasn’t sure which of the few elves she trusted with the key to the case had betrayed her, but her money was on Jerome. If so, she’d make sure his goateed little head would roll. But she realized, as she watched the witch, that there were more immediate concerns to handle right then.

Dama folded her arms and glared at the impertinent witch. After a moment Dama said coldly, “Can I help you?”

“G’aah!” the startled witch sputtered and swung around to face Dama, accidentally dropping the flask as she did so. It crashed upon the stone floor.

Dama looked down upon the light-blue puddle beneath the shattered glass fragments for a moment, and then back up at the witch, who she now saw wore a tin badge of some sort pinned to her chest. “You’re going to have to pay for that,” Dama said, nodding toward the puddle. “Pity you broke it. It could have done you so much good. And you are…?”

At Dama’s insult the witch’s startled expression turned to annoyance. In response to the Godmother’s query, she responded, “Baba.”

Dama raised an eyebrow. “Is that your name, or are you a transmuted sheep?” she asked.

Now it was Baba’s turn to glare at Dama. “I am the newly appointed Inspector General, Magical Regulatory division for the kingdom of Far Far Away,” she said, touching her badge, “and I have some bad news for you.” She took the clipboard in both hands and looked down at it the parchment clipped there. After taking a moment to focus and clear her throat, she said, “You have been found in violation of 263 counts of potion potency limitations, 52 violations of statute 66 subsection 6 against providing potions or amulets whose magic may affect others without their knowledge or consent…” here Baba nodded down toward the shattered bottle before continuing “…13 violations of the pristine kingdom preservation act through inadequately filtered factory emissions—”

“Are you quite finished?” Dama asked. She had been waiting, arms crossed, her patience wearing thin and anger building as Baba recited her litany.

Baba looked up. “It goes on,” she replied. “Unfortunately, you won’t.” Baba tucked the clipboard back under an arm, reached into a pocket and pulled out a scroll. She held it out toward Dama with one hand and it unfurled. “Due to the excessive number of violations, this decree allows for the confiscation of this factory and all adjoining buildings. This property is to be placed into receivership of a party designated by the Crown, I’m afraid.”

Dama’s eyes widened in disbelief, and then narrowed in fury. “Oh, yes, my dear, you should be afraid,” she growled. Unfolding her arms and aiming the wand, its tip glowing brightly, at the witch. “Be very afraid.”

Baba looked at Dama’s flushed face for a moment as her own blanched. Then she whirled toward her broom, tossed the scroll and clipboard into a small cauldron that hung from its bottom, then pulled out a small jack-o-lantern, the carvings that made up its eyes, nose, and mouth already glowing from an eerie inner light. Turning back to Dama, she pulled the jack-o-lantern back in one hand like a pitcher half-way through her throwing motion. “Don’t move!” she said, trying unsuccessfully to sound more threatening than frightened. “I—I’ve got a loaded pumpkin here, and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Dama, taken aback by the absurd sight before her, lowered her own threatening posture somewhat. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.

Trying futilely to keep the tremor from her voice, Baba said, “Even if you…well, if I…I mean, we’ll still take it all away from you.”

“Really?” Dama said, lowering the wand and regarding the witch as the unimportant dupe she was. “You and what army?”

Dama contemptuously turned her back on the witch, pushed one of the doors to the potion room open and strode back onto the shop floor…only to find herself met by a group of the twenty-some elves that made up her private security force. They were all dressed in the same light-blue uniforms, and all had their automatic crossbows pointed directly at her. Their lean faces held looks of grim determination. A few paces away, beside the first rank of security elves, stood Jerome.

Dama stared at them, not afraid, but aghast at the effrontery.

“Will this army do?” she heard Baba’s voice from behind her. Dama turned to see the witch standing nearby, just outside the now-closed potion room doors, her broomstick in her hand. She had a little smirk on her face, which quickly vanished under Dama’s withering scowl as the witch slunk back against the wall.

“I’m sorry, Fairy Godmother,” Jerome said, causing Dama to jerk her head in his direction. He then defiantly held out his own scroll. “Through agreement with King Rumpel, we are taking over receivership of this factory, until we may purchase it outright.” He lowered the scroll and looked at her. “This land,” he said, his voice bearing notes of both relief and satisfaction, “is once more ours.”

“Yours?” Dama said scornfully. “Ha! You fools. You ungrateful little fools! You have no inkling what I’ve done for you!”

“What you’ve done for us?” Jerome retorted. “You received sanction from the king to steal our business, our land, our home – and you turned it all into nothing but a cold, heartless factory, and turned us all into slaves!”

Dama raised an eyebrow. She was slightly impressed; the little elf had never shown such gumption before. Of course, having a company of bowmen keeping her trained in their sights surely helped. One corner of her mouth lifted in a scornful half-grin. “Indeed?” she said. “Might I remind you that the reason I was able to purchase this property was that you creatures couldn’t keep your cute little enterprise solvent. The lot of you couldn’t even outsell the bloody Muffin Man, and he’s a sole proprietor!”

Jerome, taken aback, winced. Dama’s wicked grin now extended across her entire mouth. Actually, she had been involved in some behind-the-scenes activities of questionable ethical quality, and she had forced Harold to have his regulators surreptitiously overlook the finer legal aspects of some of her maneuvers, but she saw no need to concede that to Jerome now. Instead, she pressed her attack.

“As to slavery,” she said, “who’s holding you here? You were always free to walk out that door. You had no spell binding you. You could have left at any time.” She then looked over the bowmen. “All of you! You could have left. Why didn’t you?”

Jerome and the bowmen, who had appeared so firm and resolute only moments before, now started to look more uncertain. She decided she’d best answer her own question lest someone work up the courage to do so in a way that undermined her advantage.

“I’ll tell you why,” she said. “Because, despite your petty complaints about the hours or the conditions, the pay or the benefits, you were too lazy or too cowardly to take a chance somewhere else. Or you realized that out there in the workforce you’d have to prove your qualifications, and how so sorrowfully lacking in any you were. So you stayed here because I tolerated you. Despite the grumbling and kvetching – and don’t think because I wasn’t around that I wasn’t aware of your whining – I was the one putting bread on your tables and roofs over your heads. You don’t think if I fired you all right now I couldn’t round up another gaggle of workers from some other mythical minority to replace you? Ha!”

Now Jerome and the bowmen were looking even more shaken and unsure. Many of the bowmens’ aims wavered, and a few lowered their crossbows altogether.

“But—but—the agreement,” Jerome stammered, putting forward his scroll again, but without nearly the confidence he had shown before.

Dama sneered at him. “That’s just a piece of paper,” she said. “This is my factory, I built it, and I’m not giving up so easily. As for your scroll and your arguments, Jerome…” Dama then remembered the twenty-foot tall bronze vat standing a few yards to her right, the properties of the mixture that was brewing within it, and the effect it would have upon contact with elves. An idea occurred to her which, due to the expense and mess that would ensue, she would never have seriously considered under more normal circumstances. But right now her anger was up and her need for a destructive outlet overruled her sounder judgment. The grin on her face now expanded to demoniacal proportions. “As for your scroll and your arguments, Jerome,” she repeated. “They’re for the birds.”

Dama flicked her wand in the direction of the vat. A burst of blue-white lightening leapt from the wand’s star tip and shot over to envelop the massive container. Still sparkling, it rotated seemingly of its own accord upon its wooden turntable base which groaned under the weight. The elves looked up, seemingly frozen in dread at the sight, until the vat’s lip was pointed in their direction. Then, with a creak, it began tipping forward.

Jerome and the other elves screamed. Too late, they turned and started running away, most of the bowmen dropping their crossbows in their panic.

“G’aah!” Baba sputtered as the first trails of a purplish-pink luminous fluid started streaming over the top of the cauldron and splashing onto the shop floor. She leapt onto her broom and took off into the air. Dama didn’t notice where she went nor did she care. She was engrossed in watching the poor, idiotic elves fleeing from the inevitable. She calmly fluttered her wings and rose into the air a safe distance as the vat completely tipped forward, dumping gallons upon gallons of its contents across the floor and streaming toward the elves. A split second later they were all engulfed, and as the concoction splashed over them their anatomy was immediately altered so that where a moment before there was a fleeing elf, a terrified white pigeon took off and began fluttering aimlessly amongst the rafters.

“Sorry, boys,” Dama said without a trace of true sorrow, “but you picked the wrong day to tick me off.”

Just then the sound of clapping up above and off to the side caused Dama to jerk her head in that direction. On the walkway just beyond the railing near the door to her office stood Rumpelstiltskin, applauding. A huge evil smile, not unlike the one that had just adorned Dama’s face, was smeared across his own. Three grinning witches stood, leaning against the railing, to either side of him. A moment later Baba descended, hopped off her broom, and took a stance by his side.

“Brilliant!” Rumpel said, laughing. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Fairy Godmother, I’ve not seen a labor movement liquidated so thoroughly and heartlessly since the governor of that northern province last year!”

“You!” Dama snarled. With a flurry of wings she sped upward toward him, her grip tightening on the handle of her wand as its tip began glowing brighter and hotter.

The smile dropped from Rumpel’s face and he took a few hurried steps backward. “Witches!” he said, and the seven witches all took stances in front of him, each drawing back a small illuminated jack-o-lantern in one hand.

Dama stopped her flight a few yards in front of and above the company of intruders and hovered there, wand at the ready. She glared down at each witch in turn; their smiles were also gone, replaced by expressions mixing resolution and trepidation. Then Dama glared most venomously down at Rumpel.

“You dirty little man,” she spat. “What have you and your carriage park carrion done with Harold and Lillian?”

“Oh? Didn’t you catch my first speech as king this evening?” Rumpel replied, regaining some composure and even smiling slightly. “I thought it went rather well. Heck, I think it deserves an award.”

“I heard your speech,” Dama shot back. “You lie! I know that Fiona’s still in her tower, not reunited with her parents.”

“Okay, I guess maybe I jumped the bow on that one,” Rumpel admitted. “But Fiona will be reunited with her parents in their present blissful home some day. At least, that’s what the clerics say.”

Dama’s eyes widened. “So you really did…good God!”

“God had little to do with it,” Rumpel said. “My style better fits the other side. As to the fate of my royal predecessors…let’s just say they no longer ride this plane of existence. Beyond that…well, that’s not my problem.”

“No,” Dama said, a threatening tone returning to her voice. “I’m your problem.”

“And my solution!” he said, suddenly jovial. “In fact, we’re each others’ solutions!”

“What?” Dama said, surprised and confused by his unexpected response.

“C’mon into my office,” Rumpel said, gesturing back to the door to Dama’s office, “and I’ll explain. Then we can discuss a deal.”

“It’s my office,” Dama retorted haughtily, hovering straighter. “And do you think I’m an idiot? I’ll make no deals with you!”

“Oh, but you haven’t heard what I have to offer!” Rumpel said, almost gleeful now. “C’mon, let me show ya!”

With that, Rumpel turned, pushed open the door to Dama’s office, and strode into it as if he owned it – which, Dama reflected irritably, he literally did…for the moment. The other witches followed him, but more carefully, as they kept glancing back at her and held their jack-o-lanterns at the ready. But eventually they had all entered, leaving Dama to just hover there, staring at the open, empty doorway. This was embarrassing. This wasn’t how she had begun envisioning her confrontation with the imp to go. She looked back and up at the birds that had been her security force as they perched and fluttered helplessly and aimlessly between rafters. She sighed, and then turned back to the doorway. She glanced at the glowing star tip of her trusty wand. Satisfied that she would be ready if Rumpel or his witches tried anything violent, she flew down and alighted upon the walkway in front of her office. Taking a deep breath, she strode through the doorway, trying to project an air of confidence while remaining circumspect about the goings-on around her.

The witches were standing three to her right side and four to her left. They were several paces back and appeared to pose no immediate threat, although they still kept their jack-o-lanterns ready. Rumpel, for his part, was sitting upon the front edge of her desk and grinning at her. His impertinence started reigniting her temper, but then he again said something unexpected that took her aback: “First, Fairy Godmother, I want to thaaaank you! You’re the one that’s made my pending empire possible!”

“What?” she said, confused. “What are you rambling about, Stiltskin?”

“Oh, I know you didn’t mean to,” he said. “In fact, you did everything within your power – and within the king’s power, I might add – to suppress me and any other magic users that might pose a threat to you and your own little empire.” Rumpel’s grin faded and as he continued speaking his placid demeanor cracked and he became more agitated, his voice became angrier, and his words came out more quickly. “Between potency and scope regulations that you somehow managed to obtain exemptions or oversights for, and somehow managing to secure the copyrights to all the most popular and powerful spells and potions, you built yourself up quite a nice little monopoly, driving me and my witches into virtual exile and forcing us to live off crumbs you deigned beneath your dignity to bother with!”

Rumpel had finished his last sentence in one great breath, and now he sat there, panting, his body trembling, his eyes fixed on Dama with seething resentment.

Now, though, it was Dama’s turn to put on a placid demeanor. “Oh, come now,” she said, allowing her voice only a trace of contempt. “You give me too much credit. You drove yourself into exile. My customers have all walked away happy, their problems placated or solved. Your customers, Stiltskin, could hardly boast the same. Word of mouth means a lot, my repugnant little fiend, and your reputation became poison. Even when you could have made a deal that left the signatory happy as well as benefiting yourself, you managed to pervert it so that they suffered in the end. And why was that? Let’s explore that, shall we? Is your personal nature just so twisted that you feel psychopathically compelled to do so, or is the source of your magic so dark that it only works if the poor duped signatory has to suffer in the end?”

Now a grim little grin returned to Rumpel’s face and he seemed to recompose himself. “Well, you might find out sooner than you think,” he said. “But as for all your customers being happy, does that include the little frog prince?”

Dama blushed. “How did you—” she began, then quickly shut her mouth.

But Rumpel’s grin widened at her reaction. “How did I know about your deal with Harold? Well, I’ll tell ya. Not too long ago – although quite some time from now – I made the deal of a lifetime. Or of my lifetime. It cost someone else theirs. But you ought to thank me…it will save yours, and will save your son, Prince Charming…yes, I know he’s your son…quite a bit of distress and embarrassment.”

Dama’s brow knitted in confused frustration. It was unsettling enough that he knew about Charming being her son as well as her dealings with Harold, but the rest of what he said… “What are you babbling about, now? Start making sense!” she demanded, taking a step toward Rumpel and prompting the witches to take wary steps toward her in response.

Rumpel chuckled, apparently amused at Dama’s confusion and loss of composure. “It’s simple, really. The deal I made with Harold originally fell through. And it fell through because someone else rescued Fiona.”

Dama gaped. “What?” she said. “But the dragon! How did he defeat—”

“Quite unconventionally,” Rumpel said. “But that’s not important right now. The point is, he did. So that ended up destroying both our plans. And, to make a long story short – actually, three long stories – he married Fiona, you tried to undo the marriage but ended up getting yourself killed, and then your bereaved but still ambitious son attempted a coup which also flopped and he ended up broken and disgraced. Nice tries, but epic fails on both your parts. Totally pwned!”

Rumpel’s derision irritated Dama but she tried recomposing herself despite it. “Then, whom might I ask was Fiona’s rescuer?”

Rumpel laughed outright, then said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”

“I don’t believe you now,” she said. “You’re making this whole silly story up.”

“Then how did I know about the frog prince? Or that Charming’s you son?”

“Lot of ways that make more sense than that fairy tale you just told. Since Harold stupidly made that deal with you, he may simply have told you then. Besides, you just claimed you didn’t make the deal with Harold and this interloper destroyed both our plans.”

“Ah, but that’s the best part!” Rumpel said, brightening. “And – really, the most ingenious part, I must say. I made a deal with Fiona’s husband to trade a day of his life for a day where he could go back to being a carefree o—uh, bachelor. And so I gave him his one day in return for taking—”

“His birthday,” Dama said, matter-of-factly. “Causing him not to be born and thus unable to rescue Fiona and ruin your deal with Harold.”

Rumpel blinked. “Yes,” he said, slightly perturbed, “well, as they say, great minds think alike!”

Dama shrugged. “It’s not a particularly original concept.”

“No, but I did add my own delicious spin on it!”

“So tell me, if this…this alternate reality never happened, how do you have such vivid memories of it?”

“Because I’m the instigator and one of the signatories of the contract that altered it.”

“So Fiona’s husband would also remember. He got one day, you said. Does he even exist any longer?”

“First, he’s not Fiona’s husband any longer—and never will be,” Rumpel replied, with particular emphasis on the last part. “Second, none of that concerns you. You’re not the hero of this tale – I’m not compelled to confess all my plans to you.”

“Not even the part where you explain how a toad like you can convince anybody to sign a contract once they really learn of your reputation? ‘The Rumpel Deal’, indeed. Even if nobody learns about Harold, you’ve left quite a trail of other bad deals and broken dreams. What will happen tomorrow when a little investigative journalism proves what a villain you are? I can just hear the town criers now, hawking their pamphlets on every street corner exposing their ‘new king’ as disreputable shyster! Your credibility will be completely shot.”

“Oh, I don’t think that will happen,” Rumpel said smugly.

Dama frowned. “What do you mean? If you plan on shutting down papers and violating the Manga Carpal—”

“I have no such heavy-handed plans…yet,” Rumpel said. “I don’t need to. Early today, on the way into town, I stopped by the home of a competent but little-read news writer, a vulpine fellow by the name of mister Fox E. Loxy. He’s an underground journalist, but wants to move up in the world. Well, we soon had a signed contract. Now, Loxy News will magically become by far the most popular and trusted source for information throughout the kingdom, with all its stories unofficially designed to promote my party line. It’ll be fantastic!”

“Oh, Please,” Dama said. “Even with magic, don’t you think people will see through that?”

“You’d be surprised what people see,” Rumpel replied, “when they only view the world through the spectrum of their favorite color – be it red, or blue, or any other. In this case, people will only want to see the path to their personal prosperity. And, as I said earlier, that’s a path you blazed for me.”

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“Let me spell it out for ya. First, by cutting off any aid to the most needy, they’ll either have to suffer through an absolutely medieval life of begging and scraping and as likely as not ending up in debtor’s prison, or take advantage of a totally voluntary personal aid ‘Rumpel Deal’ – which, because it is voluntary, doesn’t violate the Manga Carpal. Heck, it doesn’t even use any public funds. So what do you think they’ll choose?”

“Likely you, of course,” she said. “But because it’s a deal with you, they’ll end up broken and worse than if they’d never signed, even if they didn’t think that was possible.”

“Ah, but not at first!” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “At first, they’ll prosper. Oh, they’ll prosper! Suddenly this street scum will be riding in the best carriages and buying the finest homes. And I’ll hold them up quite publicly as shining examples of what a Rumpel Deal can do. You can bet other people will notice this. People who are doing okay or even well, but have been indoctrinated for years by you, my dear Godmother, to want more. To never be satisfied. To always seek to not only keep up with the Joneses, but to better them. Tell me, whenever you went into one of your high-pressure marketing spiels, was even one person ever secure and self-confident enough to say, ‘Thank you very much Fairy Godmother, but I really don’t need all this’?”

Dama’s eyes widened a bit as she realized the extent of Rumpel’s plan – and how likely it was to succeed.

Rumpel, noticing Dama’s reaction, smiled fiercely. “Ah, I see you get it. In order to promote yourself and your own business interest, you’ve created a voracious consumer culture, a culture itself consumed with commercialism and the pursuit of self-satisfaction, with expectations so high that only your magical solutions could begin to satiate it. When they see people they regarded as human refuse suddenly doing not only well, but better than they are…well, then they’ll want a Rumpel Deal of their own! And they’ll get one, too, and they, too, will do quite well – at first. And as the highest upper class see these upstarts doing even better than they—”

“Yes, as you said, I get it,” Dama interrupted. “Soon you’ll have virtually everyone bound up in one of your deals. And then, after everybody’s bound to you—”

“Boom!” Rumpel said, gleefully throwing his arms in the air. “The bubble bursts, and all their wealth, both new and old, becomes mine. Call it trickle-up economics. Trickle, heck, it’ll be a torrent! A torrent upload into my personal coffers!”

Dama ground her teeth while she watched the little imp sitting there, chortling. “So tell me,” she eventually asked, “where’s all this wealth that’s magically being transferred back and forth coming from?”

“Neah,” Rumpel said, flipping a hand dismissively. “I’ll let the next generation worry about that. Oh! And speaking of the next generation…”

Rumpel nimbly rolled backward on the desk, did a brief handstand, then pushed himself upward, flipping in the air and adroitly landing in a sitting position in Dama’s chair. He studied her, a sardonic grin on his face, as the inside of the crystal ball that sat between them started to swirl with its inner mists. His smug and now predatory demeanor was disconcerting her, and she was having a hard time trying not to show it.

“Here’s that deal I promised,” he said. “Give me your wand, agree to forfeit this factory to me without further fight, and you can have your boy back.”

Then the mists in the ball parted to reveal the face of Prince Charming.

“Junior!” Dama cried, dropping all pretense of poise.

“Mother!” he cried back, and began to lean forward. But then he was pulled violently back, and the image in the ball panned back and Dama saw that Charming was sitting, bound to a chair with his arms behind him. To either side of him stood two witches. The one nearest his right held a long and cruel looking dagger.

“Well?” Rumpel asked. “Will you give me the wand?”

“Oh, I’ll give it to you,” she snarled. The star tip of Dama’s wand suddenly burned its brightest as she thrust it toward Rumpel with her right hand. “Now here’s my deal. You let my son go, now, or I’ll—”

So distraught was Dama at seeing her son endangered, and so intent at concentrating on the vile little figure planted in what to him was a ludicrously oversized chair, that she dropped her guard and didn’t notice the metallic chattering sound off to her right. Suddenly something struck and latched painfully onto her right wrist, knocking Dama’s wand from her hand. She gave a curt “Ugh!” as she looked down to see what looked like a tarnished steel skull, about half the size of an actual one, attached to her wrist, its ‘teeth’ biting hard enough to have a firm grip but not quite enough to pierce the skin. The skull was attached to a chain, and Dama glanced to her right to see that the other end of the chain was held by one of the witches a few yards away, the crone’s sardonic grin aping that of her master.

Dama looked back down. The wand was on the floor just in front of her now, its glowing tip starting to fade. She quickly leaned down and tried to grab for it with her left hand but just before her fingers touched it one the metallic skulls flew in from her left side, seizing that wrist. “AGH!” she sputtered in pain and frustration as the witch on the other end of that chain jerked her hand up and away from the wand. Then the whole coven was upon her. Dama tried to struggle but her resisting arms were forced behind her. The steel skulls were removed and Dama felt her wrists and arms being bound with more conventional rope.

“Mummy!” Charming called frantically from inside the ball. “What’s happening? Leave her alone, you hags!”

“Junior! Can you hear me?” Dama said.

“Yes,” he replied. “I’m hearing and seeing you in a small crystal sphere that one of the hideous creatures before me is holding forth.” With that, one of the witches jerked on his bonds, and he winced.

Dama nodded. Inter-crystal communication. Otherwise to see him he’d need to be at a psychic hotspot or a pre-enchanted location like Fiona’s tower room. “Junior,” she said, trying to calm herself and hopefully him. “Don’t provoke them. Just…just do what they say. Mummy will think of something.”

“Awwww,” Rumpel said, hopping from the chair and prancing around the desk to stand before her. “That is just so sweet! The mama grizzly and her cub. It just warms the cockles of my heart.”

“You have no heart,” Dama spat at him.

“Now, now, watch that temper,” Rumpel said, leaning down and picking up the now inert wand. “It may be the death of you yet.”

“Don’t you dare harm her, you filth!” Charming roared from the ball.

Rumpel waved down Charming with one had while still keeping his eyes fixed on the wand he held with the other, twisting the handle around and studying its star. “Oh, just get down off your high horse, Princey. Wait, I forgot, you already are. Sorry my witches had to ambush you at Weyleigh Pass and disrupt your little quest. But I don’t plan to harm one glittery little silver hair on her head.” Then he did look over at Charming. “As long as you do one little thing for me.”

Charming scoffed. “I…do something for you, gnome? I think not!”

“Well, then, if you insist…” Rumpel trailed off, and slowly turned the wand down to point at Dama.

“No! Wait!” Charming said. “All right, whatever you want. Just…don’t hurt her.”

Rumpel let out a burst of laughter, then, addressing the witches around him, said, “Isn’t it ironic, ladies? All the devious schemes and plans of diabolic nature, and it’s love that brings them down. There’s a fable in there, somewhere. Or at least a nursery rhyme. Anyway…” he looked back at Charming. “What I want is simple. My witches will let you go, and you will complete your journey to the dragon’s keep.”

Charming looked confused. “But…they said that you’re the king now.”

“True.”

“So Fiona is no longer in line of succession. What good would her rescue do you?”

“Or you, for that matter?” Rumpel suggested.

Charming shrugged.

“Ah, that’s more the Prince Charming I know; that good ole ‘What’s in it for me’ attitude. Anyway, that’s none of your concern. Remember, it’s not Fiona that you’ll be rescuing as much as Mommie Dearest here. And don’t get any bright ideas of attempting a more direct rescue of everybody’s favorite Fairy Godmother. You’ll be on a strict timetable: any delay, or side trips, and, well…” Rumpel used the wand to mime slitting his throat.

Charming blanched. “Fine,” he said. “I do this for you, and then you’ll let her go?”

“And what of Charming?” Dama said, her tone skeptical “would you then let him go?”

Rumpel sighed. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, and turned to Dama. “You have my word; if Charming does this for me, you’ll have your boy back.”

“Your word,” Dama said mockingly.

“I’m afraid, unlike me, you don’t have an alternative,” he retorted.

Dama closed her mouth and glared at him.

Rumpel smiled, and then he turned back to Charming. “Oh, there’s just one little deviation from your original rescue scenario I need you to perform.”

“And what is that?” the prince asked.

Rumpel explained what he wanted done, and how long Charming had to do it. “You devil,” Charming said in disgust.

“I’m workin’ on it!” Rumpel said giddily. “Now, go do your duty for king and country!”

Charming’s icy stare latched onto Rumpel as the crystal ball began to mist again. The prince’s image faded into the clouds and a moment later the clouds themselves faded until the ball was dull and lifeless once more. Rumpel then turned to face Dama, a sinister smile on his lips.

“Stiltskin,” she said, “you are a monster.”

“But a successful one,” he noted. “Jealous much? It’s nothing either of you wouldn’t do if pushed to desperation; trust me, I know. But one thing I must ask, Godmother…you don’t plan for Charming to actually fight the dragon, do you?”

“What do you mean?” she said, not quite able to make her question sound as innocent as she wanted.

“Oh, I just doubt that you’d leave your precious son’s life, not to mention your shot at the kingdom, to the outcome of a fair fight with a dragon, however skilled you think Charming is.”

Dama shifted uncomfortably.

“Oh, c’mon,” Rumpel prodded. “There’s nothing more to lose now. As one old mage to another…what’s the catch?”

Dama sighed. What more was to lose? “His scent,” she confessed. “When arranging to have Fiona imprisoned, I managed to magically steal the dragon’s voice. The dragon can still make animalistic sounds, which with effort could be turned into a type of language, but as for her true voice…well, I made a deal with her to return it if she agreed to keep Fiona imprisoned and fight off all potential rescuers until one came bearing his scent. If Charming rescued her, the dragon got her voice back. But if someone else did…or Fiona somehow escaped…then her voice was gone for good.”

Rumpel smiled broadly. “How deliciously devious!” he said. “Godmother, I am truly impressed! It sounds like a deal worthy of myself…of course, I’d be tempted to throw in a catch of my own, you know me. Then again, it’s not usually wise to go messin’ with dragons. So, tell me, how are you ‘keeping’ the dragon’s voice?”

Dama thought of the conch shell containing the dragon’s voice that she kept locked in a hidden safe, and realized it best stay there lest the imp consider making a deal of his own with the dragon and endangering her son. “I shan’t tell you that,” she said. “Not until Charming returns safely.”

Rumpel laughed. “Why, Fairy Godmother!” he said. “If I didn’t know better I’d swear you didn’t trust me!”

When Dama didn’t respond to his gibe, Rumpel turned his attention back to the wand. “So, tell me this,” he said, waving it about and shaking it, “how do you get this thing to work, anyway?” Then the wand head began to glow. “Ah! Never mind, I think I’m getting it.”

Rumpel held the wand before him, its brightening star tip a foot or so from his face. He smiled, apparently imaging what wielding such a devise could do to augment his already considerable power. Then suddenly the star tip exploded, producing a collective gasp from the witches. Rumpel, who had not moved, was left standing there, staring angrily at the charred and smoking tip of the wand handle, his face blackened and hair blown backward from the explosion. Dama couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight, and Rumpel slowly shifted his angry stare at her.

“Identity theft protection,” she explained. “All my wands have it.”

“Very funny,” he said without mirth. “Take her away. We’ll await Charming’s return…and then we’ll see who gets the last laugh.”